Dave, I concur with Scott's comments. At one time I too was a "big" boat sailor, but now that I've found, bought, and sailed an M15, I'm totally happy. It's a great little ship. Scott has cruised for three weeks, or more, with two persons on board, and has excellent solutions for storage: See Archives for his cruise story and his "How To...." The only comment I can add would be to with regards the styrofoam floatation in the bow compartment: The styrofoam pieces - for their volume - take up a lot of space in a very inefficient manner. If you want to use the bow compartment for storage, then get rid of the styrofoam logs, and replace them with empty 2 liter plastic bottles, with their caps on tight. They will fit into the compartment shape better: give you the same, or more flotation; -and provide you with additional usable storage space. You will just have to work out a system of keeping them where they belong! .....and you won't have crumbling bits of styrofoam to clean up. The M15 can use weight forward. With two adults in the cockpit, and an outboard on the stern, the stern will be low in the water and cause excessive drag. Anything you can put in the bow compartment will tend to off-set this problem: water containers; a battery; canned goods; etc. The name of the game is to keep the bottom of the transom from dragging in the water, if you want to achieve maximum sailing speed. Connie M15 #400 LEPPO ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/.